Sarah Snudden is a 2001 graduate from the A.C. Nielsen Center, receiving her MS in Marketing Research from the Wisconsin School of Business, prior to the program transitioning to its current MBA format. Sarah has experience on both the client and vendor side of insights. She began her career in marketing research at Pillsbury and is now the Vice President of Customer Success and Digital Transformation at Ask Your Target Market (AYTM). Sarah has a long-standing history in consumer-packaged goods and innovation and is a leader in helping organizations adopt agile insights technology.
How did you decide to pursue marketing research, and why did you choose the A.C. Nielsen Center?
I was working as a marketing research temp and had a position at Pillsbury. I was tempted by the idea of going to the agency side of marketing. The agency side was appealing to me because it had a lot of energy and creativity, and it did not require an MBA to enter. However, there was a director at Pillsbury with connections to the A.C. Nielsen Center who convinced me to go the business school route, helped me develop a plan and resources to accomplish it, and pointed me towards the A.C. Nielsen Center.
How has being a part of the A.C. Nielsen Center network benefitted you?
The A.C. Nielsen Center connection was how I really got my start and propelled my career in insights, so the network began to benefit me even before I applied and entered the program. The bonding between peers while in the program was also a significant benefit – you are all going through the same gauntlet together which helps create a common ground and provides a group of people you can go to when you are trying to solve problems and figure things out in the real world. For example, it provides a space where you can seek input when trying to figure out how to do something better or deciding which research suppliers to use.
How have you seen marketing research and insights evolve throughout your career?
I would say what I’ve seen most recently is that the insights industry is going through some growing pains due to several variables and a constant need to optimize and play the balancing act of maximizing people, timelines, and dollars. However, with these growing pains comes a lot of opportunities. It provides a chance for insights professionals to reground themselves and connect to what is most important. It has also caused the insights industry to untrain itself in certain ways to reconsider old ways of doing things and help bring about a renewed sense of curiosity and ability to answer questions with fresh eyes.
Insights automation has also been a significant evolution in the industry. Prior to more agile and automated options, when you were doing testing, you had to pick one specific time to test and often made your best guess at when and where that should be. Now you can test at multiple touch points to provide additional insights at a faster rate to more accurately and precisely solve business problems.
What advice would you give prospective students, current students, or recent grads from the program?
I would say to ask yourself, “What are you getting out of your experience? When it is hard, are you still getting something out of it?” And if you are not sure what the answer is, keep asking questions. The grass always looks greener from a distance. However, when you get a little closer, you’ll notice things you couldn’t see from a distance.
Categories: